From Frontiers to Borders: How Colonial Technicians Created Modern Territoriality (Lse International Studies)

How did modern territoriality emerge and what are its consequences? This book examines these key questions with a unique global perspective. Kerry Goettlich argues that linear boundaries are products of particular colonial encounters, rather than being essentially an intra-European practice artificially imposed on colonized regions. He reconceptualizes modern territoriality as a phenomenon separate from sovereignty and the state, based on expert practices of delimitation and demarcation. Its history stems from the social production of expertise oriented towards these practices. Employing both primary and secondary sources, From Frontiers to Borders examines how this expertise emerged in settler colonies in North America and in British India – cases which illuminate a range of different types of colonial rule and influence. It also explores some of the consequences of the globalization of modern territoriality, exposing the colonial origins of Boundary Studies, and the impact of boundary experts on the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–20.

Kerry Goettlich is Lecturer in International Security at the University of Reading. His research has appeared in journals including the American Political Science Review, the European Journal of International Relations, and International Political Sociology. He has received numerous awards for his work including the Mary Parker Follett Prize from the American Political Science Association, the Merze Tate Prize from the International Studies Association, and the Best Dissertation Award from the European International Studies Association.